Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Ballantyne VIP Projector

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Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 09-22-2003, 04:27 PM:

Hi Everyone,

I'm looking for a picture of the Ballantyne VIP projector.. Could anyone please provide a good picture of this?

Thank-you!

Posted by Greg Pauley (Member # 503) on 09-22-2003, 06:17 PM:

You can go to our website at www.ourshowtimes.com and select the Park Place Stadium Cinemas page and take the digital tour. You will find your way to the projection booth that has a Pro35 projector with a model 7 sound head on a VIP base.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-22-2003, 09:40 PM:

Andrew, here is a new Pro-35 that just got off the assembly line. I took this picture at Strong International when Josh and I toured the plant.

Posted by Ken Layton (Member # 133) on 09-22-2003, 11:00 PM:

Andrew:

VIP is the pedestal base. Pro-35 is the projector head. Here on the manuals page look under misc. and you'll see Ballantyne VIP.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 09-22-2003, 11:12 PM:

For an answer to your question about the VIP projector and not just the projection head, see below.

I've installed well over 300 of those bases but with mostly 870 heads.

(Don't know where this pic is from...I probably stoled it from Brad's website at some point!)

>>> Phil

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-23-2003, 12:13 AM:

Almost looks like a Marcus house in Wisconsin I once serviced.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 09-23-2003, 12:16 AM:

Shame those projectors don't have the Rewind system on them. Ones I worked with years ago had the ability to rewind on the projector. So you didn't have to keep taking reels off and on unless you changed features of course.

Posted by Dan Lyons (Member # 1454) on 09-23-2003, 01:27 AM:

Great photo Phil, hopefully I'll have my parts back soon so mine can look as good as those sexy machines.

Paul, what is that warning sticker?? Is that a "DON'T TOUCH THE FRAMING KNOB!!"? [thumbsup]

or a "don't stick fingers in moving sprockets"? I can't tell...

Danny

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 09-23-2003, 01:30 AM:

I, too, am wondering about that warning sticker.

How does the onboard rewind system work? Is it just a motor attached to the feed arm and maybe a guidance roller in front of the machine to keep the film from hitting the projector body? I've never seen anything like this.

Phil--what's with the wimpy lamphouses in that large(ish) booth? Does the VIP base have motor driven takeup shafts?

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 09-23-2003, 02:24 AM:

The rewind was a clutch driven reel arm that had a motor on it. It had a control unit mounted on the top of the head that extended outward. THis control had a roller on it that was basically an on off failsafe type switch. Located at the base of the projector just below the soundhead was another roller that the film came up from the takeup reel to the controle roller to the payout reel. After rewinding was complete the controle roller would drop and rewind would stop,

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-23-2003, 02:09 PM:

Danny and Scott: What warning sign? This one?

Posted by Erick Akers (Member # 875) on 09-23-2003, 04:09 PM:

That's a good one paul [Big Grin]

Posted by Larry Shaw (Member # 388) on 09-23-2003, 06:45 PM:

Fun fact to know and tell:

The Ballantyne drive train design is a direct knock-off of Philips/Kinoton's DP-75. Of course that was done decades ago by completely different management, but interesting from a historical perspective nonetheless.

Posted by Jon Miller (Member # 163) on 09-23-2003, 07:06 PM:

Danny and Scott--it's a "stick your fingers in the sprockets or gear train while the projector is running and they'll be given the 'Big Squeeze' and you won't be able to squeeze the Charmin for awhile" label. [Big Grin]

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 09-23-2003, 07:11 PM:

Danny & Scott: That label is a warning for stupid people not to put their fingers in an operating mechanism. A sign of the times.

Scott: Since I have no clue as to where that pic is from, I would have to assume the theatre is about the size of the booth and the screen is about 5x12. [Razz]

In all the stock VIP bases I have seen, the take-ups were belt-driven from the head.

Larry: Is that a documented fact or another industry "old-wives-tale"? It seems like Kinoton has invented everything including great sex!

>>> Phil

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-23-2003, 07:35 PM:

Actually Phil, It is a true "wives tale". Ballantyne HAD a good projector before the Pro?-35 was designed. Ballantyne was the US distributor for Phillips projectors back in the late 60's early 70's till the Pro?-35 came out on the market. Ballantyne actually was the originator of the short lamphouse table for the DP-70 in its last years and manufactured the bases and other heavy parts that were un economical to ship over fomr Holland. Its just too bad that they didn't make the coupling out of bronze as Phillips did in the DP-75 and FP-20 machines. Had Ballantyne done that they would have had a pretty good machine. As you know though the better versions of the Pro?-35 had solid star shafts.

I seem to remember on a trip to BL&S a couple of decades ago that Larry and Chapin were quite enamoured with the Pro?-35 for some reason or other.....?

Mark

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 09-23-2003, 07:50 PM:

Mark: Thanks for the info...I will file it away in my pea-brain! [Smile]

>>> Phil

Posted by Ken Layton (Member # 133) on 09-23-2003, 10:55 PM:

The VIP pedestals that Tom Moyer used in all his theaters here in the Pacific Northwest all had rewind on the machine. The takeup was this giant General Electric magnetic clutch motor.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 09-23-2003, 11:07 PM:

That's the type pedastale that we used too.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-23-2003, 11:47 PM:

I remember seeing a Simplex Super that wore the Ballentyne name in South Dakota years ago. Does anyone know about those machines?

One feature the Pro-35 had was a special film trap which supposedly allowed the machine to run backwards. While running backwards, the film was basically crammed up through the film trap. The special intermittant sprocket shoe prevented the film form buckeling while running backwards.

Those Pro-35's had two motors in them. There was a little difference in the pully ratios.

These style machines were used with the Eprad Sword (I forgot what model) in the two-projector change-over system. When the change-over was made, the off-going machine would shut down and reverse direction and start running backwards to rewind that reel. One of the sales points was "Never needs rethreading."

As long as the film trap was and kept properly adjusted, it seemed to work quite well. But if the film trap was in poor shape or mis-adjusted, a print could be destroyed very easily.

Simplex 35 was experimenting with a reverse machine. I saw it at Show-West sometime in the 1990's. I never saw one since. What ever became of that idea?

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-24-2003, 09:45 AM:

George Kearasotes Theatres also has a number of the reversing Ballantynes. The Ballantyne that looked like a Super was an early projector they produced that was a knock off of the Regular Simplex. I believe there is something about this on the Strong web site historical area......
We have two reversing portable Simplex 35's that we rent out at CLACO. There is also a screening room rock and roll version of the Simplex 35 that is used in many studios.
Mark

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 09-24-2003, 10:55 AM:

The Ballentyne BW was the Wenzel clone of a Simplex Standard with some Super features.

Posted by Larry Shaw (Member # 388) on 09-24-2003, 11:02 AM:

Phil,

I am looking at a production drawing of the DP-75 dated 4/63.

In our library I found some very early Pro-35 manuals (the ones with the "puking dog" and "tightning a watch with a vise-grip" cartoons, and the boast that "all the designers are members of I.A.T.S.E.!"). The earliest date on any of the drawings I could find is 6/23/70. The earliest Pro-35 sales brochure I found is 10/78.

As Mark said, if Ballantyne had not cheapened it so much, they would have had a pretty good machine.

Philips/Kinoton certianly didn't invent everything, and not everything they did is perfect (EG: The gate design of the DP-75 is not their finest work), but they do IMHO have a track record second to none.

Invent great sex? I think they're too serious.
Like the ad: "Germans don't do romance; Germans do BEER!"

Posted by Richard Fowler (Member # 893) on 09-24-2003, 12:14 PM:

I remember going to a technical meeting when the PRO-35 had been out for a couple of years in the 1970's. The main speaker, whose name I forgot, was the lead designer for the PRO and was also involved in the team that designed the XL while employed at General Precision....a small world.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 09-24-2003, 01:11 PM:

Another down side to the Pro?-35 I forgot to mention is that the star is not hardened like that in a Simplex, Kinoton, or Century. The Pro?-35 star was patterened after the Brenkert star which is also not a hardened star but for what ever reason the Brenkert star fares better than the Pro?-35's does even after a major pile up. That has made for ALOT of broken tips on Pro?-35 starwheels after film pile ups. The webbed star has fared only a little better in that department. I overhauled a Pr0?-35 movement very recently that had a webbed star but one radius was slightly bent making the image bounce on screen. This one most assuredly experenced a film pile up.
Mark @ CLACO

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 09-27-2003, 04:40 PM:

Ed Nelson was the ehad engineer at ballantyne at the time and took most of the pro35 credit
Ballantyne assembled most of the FP20's and DP75 building the coloumn in the US rather than shipping from holland the assembled machine so they had more than ample opportunity for industirial espionage
Over all it was and is a workhorse machine